Meh, I'm pretty sure they already lost their potential userbase as soon as they said bitcoin won't be around for long...but lookie here, apparently they think they own the trademark for BitUSD now too:

I think IP/Trademark/Copyright law is unnecessary and does more harm than good, but aside from debating why IP law shouldn't exist, it's better to address the reality that it does just as one has to address the reality of government.

#1 - How do you qualify?"Assuming that a trademark qualifies for protection, rights to a trademark can be acquired in one of two ways: (1) by being the first to use the mark in commerce; or (2) by being the first to register the mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO")"

Wasn't bitShares first anyways?

#2 - In regards to prerequisites:

"In order to serve as a trademark, a mark must be distinctive -- that is, it must be capable of identifying the source of a particular good. In determining whether a mark is distinctive, the courts group marks into four categories, based on the relationship between the mark and the underlying product: (1) arbitrary or fanciful, (2) suggestive, (3) descriptive, or (4) generic. "

I would suggest BitAssets falls under category 3) & 4) which is either unprotected or difficult to protect. 'Bit' denotes a basic computing unit or something 'computer-related'/'digital'. Assets/USD/Euro/dollar/gold are all generic terms. Hence I doubt the trademark will stand in court if you have a half-decent lawyer. BTW who are the going to sue?.. the DAC?

But even for outside companies that promote BTS or BitAssets, there should be no real issue. There's always the problem that large companies that like to bully smaller companies may try to drain resources via a legal battle. It's also just a tactic to create fear to discourage others from using the same terms.

However using the (TM) symbol is very unappealing and has a negative effect for consumers so I would recommend that they don't trademark it. It's bad for business and they have extremely weak legal grounds anyways.

Yeah, visually it looks fantastic and with a few little publicity BitMetals thrown in.

Their adoption seems to be growing strongly but if you look at the PR stunt that they did with their crowdfunding. (Where 95%+ was contributed by one investor - https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12769.msg168189#msg168189) I think there's a reasonable probability that they could be buying many of the BitAssets themselves for the next 6 months to make it look like their MOM BitAsset adoption is really high and fairly global.

There's a market for them but it will become very saturated and it's very different to the one for decentralised BitAssets.